


un animal que ya no muerde

by laratoncita



Series: To Live & Die in LA [7]
Category: On My Block (TV)
Genre: Drug Dealing, F/M, Gangs, Gen, Pre-Canon, Reminiscing, This is 2K of me being emo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 04:49:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19041448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laratoncita/pseuds/laratoncita
Summary: In Spanish the verb ishuir.





	un animal que ya no muerde

**Author's Note:**

> title from ángel antonio ruiz's "morada tercera", meaning "an animal that no longer bites", aka, i'm always emo abt these characters.

You are nothing like my father.                           
And like my father  
you are nothing.                                               

* * *

_porque no quiero olvidar me voy me voy_  
                                                         (the trumpet cries)  
_a Los Angeles porque no quiero olvidar_  
                                    me voy a Los Angeles me voy  
                                                                   (the accordion moans)  
_a Los Angeles porque no quiero olvidar_  
                                                         _mi México_  
           (the trumpet wails)

* * *

eduardo c. corral

* * *

“Oh, God,” Claudia says, and Oscar shushes her. Smooths her hair back from her face, slick with sweat, and presses a kiss to her mouth that she can only return half-heartedly. Her fingers are digging into his ribs, the heel of one foot rubbing against his calf while they move against each other. She’s so warm—her skin, her mouth, the hot clench of her around him. He scrapes his teeth against her neck and kisses her again, swallowing down the sound she makes when she comes, whole body tense until the second it’s gone again.

His sheets are definitely ruined. There’s something about knowing he’s being sentenced tomorrow that has the both of them out of their minds—more than usual, that is. Something slower about it, today, though. Fucking in his bed is novel, too. Claudia remembered to put a pillow behind the old-ass headboard before they got started, and even if his bed is just as old they manage to keep the noise to a minimum. He bites down, hard, on that spot between her neck and shoulder when he comes, breathes in like he’ll be able to remember the smell of her perfume when they lock him up.

Rolls off of her to get rid of the condom and pull on a pair of shorts to sleep in, new sábana in hand, and comes back to find her with tears rolling down her face. Sits, one of his t-shirts in her lap and her jaw clenched, at the edge of the bed. Too far for him to reach her easily. When she turns to look at him he feels gutted. Like he ain’t shit. Lower than dirt.

“What time you gotta be at the courthouse tomorrow,” she asks, and her voice is startlingly flat. Like she’s already putting an act up. Like she can’t handle feeling everything tonight, even if he’s still there.

“Nine,” he says, and reaches out to her. “C’mere, baby.”

She pulls the shirt over her head. Tugs her underwear back on, crawls into his arms afterwards and just looks at him. The new sábana is thin, more from age than design. It settles against their skin while he rubs his thumb under her eyes; tries to make sense of the tears there and the too-calm expression on her face. Feels like maybe she’s the one leaving and not the other way around.

“Not too late, you know,” he says finally, voice low so they don’t wake up Cesar, “we could drive down to TJ tomorrow. Turn the Santos into a real sindicato.”

“You’re annoying as fuck,” she says, but it makes her almost smile, so Oscar counts it as a win. Her voice shifts, a little lighter now, just above a whisper. “You wanna head to TJ? Alright. Qué haremos?”

“Easy,” he says, “we make some connections. A few calls, sabes. I establish myself as someone who knows his shit.”

“So you admit you don’t know it now?”

“Hey,” he says, but can’t help but grin at her. Puts a hand on her face and makes her pucker up, so he can kiss her while she laughs at him. She holds him there, palm against the back of his neck, kisses him with feeling, like she’s counting down the minutes until he’s gone. He says, still cradling her face in his palm, “I know things.”

“Okay, seventh and eighth grade spelling bee _champ_ ,” she says, finally sounding like herself, “I get it. Sos el más inteligente de la casa. ‘S only ‘cause I don’t live here.”

“There you go,” he says, giddy for whatever reason, like he isn’t getting locked up in the morning, “talking shit like always. I need to wear you out better.”

“Asshole,” she says, and bites her lip when he rubs over her underwear, “again?”

“In a minute,” he says, and props himself up on an elbow, free hand on her belly, tucked up under the t-shirt that she’s probably going to take with her tomorrow. Wishes he could do something similar, take something more substantial than that photo already tucked into his wallet, as good a picture as it is. He can’t ask for a better one to keep him company for the next few years—he has an idea of how many, but he doesn’t like to remember. Would rather think of that photo, the people in it.

The summer before, around the time that Claudia moved into that shitty apartment she’s still staying in, she managed to scrounge together the cash for Disneyland. Cesar was beside himself—wore himself out, running around the park with Oscar and Claudia at his heels. They took plenty of photos that day, mostly on some disposable cameras that she tucked away in her purse. One for each of them. Some tourist had been kind enough to offer to take a photo of the three of them, despite Oscar looking the way he does and the excitement making Cesar hard to corral.

It’s a nice picture. The three of them with Mickey Mouse ears on; Cesar’s real convincing when he wants to be. Big smiles. Cesar and Oscar in matching fits, Claudia in a yellow top that looked real good against her skin. That had been a good day; Cesar hopped up on sugar before he crashed on the drive back from Anaheim, falling asleep mid-sentence while he talked about it being the best day of his life.

God. Oscar wants it to be true forever, as much as he wants even better for the kid. He got a copy made a few days earlier and now it’s waiting to be pinned up in whatever cell they take his sorry ass to tomorrow.

Intent to distribute. What a joke. Of all the shit to catch him on. Claudia ripped him a new one, when she went to bail him out. Drained her savings and has been living off credit cards, had to skip out on classes that summer to make sure she could still transfer down to San Diego for fall semester. She’s been making noise about putting it off, now, so she can just take care of Cesar but Oscar won’t hear it. Bad enough he got himself into this mess in the first place. He’s not about to fuck up Claudia’s future too. He can’t ask her for that, hates that she has to offer it in the first place.

 _How could you be so stupid_ , she said, driving a car she borrowed from her girl Araceli to pick him up _, this is your second fucking strike. Two thousand dollars, Oscar, that’s all my fucking savings. What are we gonna do about Cesar? What are we supposed to do now?_ Claudia’s too good to him. Some of the guys have made comments, shit like there’s prettier huisas out there, ones who aren’t Salvadoran. Like Oscar cares about that shit. Like Claudia ain’t been by his side through the tough shit since before they started dating, since before he got jumped in. In another life she left him, or maybe he cleaned up his act, or maybe they never met at all. Maybe that’s one good thing about this one.

Cesar’ll be okay, Oscar thinks. Like a lot of things, he says it so that he’ll believe it. He’ll have the summer with Claudia and then Adrian will take over, and it’s not like San Diego is all that far. Claudia says she’ll visit every weekend. And, really, he’ll be fine with Adrian. Sure, he’s only a year younger than Oscar and has been in the game just as long, but. It shouldn’t be too long of a sentence. Oscar keeps telling himself this, because Claudia stopped saying it out loud after the last meeting with his lawyer.

He’s mostly joking about heading down to Tijuana. Sixty-forty, tops. Maybe fifty-five percent joking. Fifty-five serious. He says, “They probably got decent houses right now.”

“Whatchu mean by decent, querido?” Claudia’s torn between amusement and being unimpressed. A pretty standard look on her, at least when Oscar’s around, not that it ever keeps her from getting her hands on him. Like right now, one curled up over his heart and the other slung across his waist, their legs tangled together. Cesar’s been asleep for awhile—Oscar made them milanesa and Claudia brought Salvadoran quesadilla for dessert. Played board games with Cesar and then tucked him into bed when it was his bedtime, waited until he fell asleep to leave. He wants to stay here forever, this moment or this night or this day, as if Oscar can pretend nothing bad will ever happen.

“Bet we could find a nice house,” he says, instead of admitting this out loud, “or an apartment, whatever’s easier. Right on the beach.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing his thumb against her navel, “three bedroom. Not on the first floor, ‘cause that’s how you get robbed.”

She laughs a little. Low. Fond. “Us fucking Angelinos. We know the score best.”

“Yeah,” he says. Watches her watch him. Her mouth purses a little, like she’s thinking. He loves that mouth—how she kisses him, how she tells him to fuck off, the way her voseo sounds.

“Why three bedrooms?” she asks.

“One for us,” he says, “one for Cesar. And an office, so you can do your homework and shit. It’ll be close enough to the border that you don’t gotta be in the car too long, yeah? But near the beach anyway.”

“Mm,” she says, “’s probably cheaper, too, huh, to live in Mexico.”

“What’s the peso at? Like fifteen? We could do it,” he says, “houses aren’t expensive down there. Apartments. Lo que sea.”

Claudia’s quiet for a long moment. If he weren’t still watching her he’d think she fell asleep.

“Qué color?”

“What?”

“What color’s our house gonna be?” she asks.

He pushes his hand up her borrowed shirt, hand curving around one side of her ribs. Her skin is still warm. Soft, smooth. That one spot that’s smoother than the rest, a scar from when she was a kid that she can’t even remember how she got. Before they met. Before all of this. He says, “Yellow. The outside’ll be yellow.”

“And inside?”

“That blue you like,” he says, “turquoise. That’s the living room. Kitchen’ll be orange.”

“Mm, you’ll be in there a lot, right?” she smiles at him. Rests her hand higher up, near his throat, instead of over his heart. He feels colder, now, even if they’re under a cover and the weather in LA is nearly always hot by the time May rolls around. When he swallows before speaking he wonders if she can feel it. If she gets it.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’ll own a restaurant. Bring some’a LA down to TJ.”

She bites her lip, like she wants to laugh. He likes the look on her. “’Cause that’s what Tijuana needs, right? Some LA punk telling them their food ain’t shit.”

“Mamita, you said that, not me,” he says. “I’m out here planning out how I’mma support you and you wanna talk shit.”

“Ay, Oscar,” she says, wiggling herself closer to him, “don’t be like that. Tell me more about our house.”

“Why you acting like you don’t believe me?” he says, shifting a bit because he’s been on his elbow for too long. Claudia sits up for a second, lets him rearrange them both, then settles closer, her head against the inside of his arm now, his fingers stroking over her shoulder. “I got it all lined up, say the word and we can dip.”

“I believe you,” she says, “I jus’ wanna know what our house looks like. Quiero que vos me digás como es.”

“Our room’s purple,” he says. “What’s that color? It’s a plant.”

“Lavender or lilac?”

“Whichever,” he says, “no que dicen que it helps you sleep? Whatever you like best. Cesar can pick his color, too.”

“Are houses supposed to have that many colors in them?” she asks, “I feel like all the ones I stayed in are the same.”

“Who cares,” Oscar says, “it’s our house. You want a different color on every wall and I’ll do it.”

She smiles again. Real. Loving. “What color is my office?”

“Mint,” he says, “I’ll get you some plants, too. So you’re not really alone when you’re in there.”

“You gonna let me decorate?”

“Yeah,” he says, “we’ll get those tacky ass paintings everyone has, you know, Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl.”

“Salvadorans don’t have that,” she says, rubbing his collarbone, “you gonna let me hang a flag up?”

“Baby, you can do whatever you want in your office.” Grins when she laughs.

After a second of hesitation, she says, “We can print some pictures, too. Get some nice frames. Pictures of us and Cesar. Those ones we took at Disney.”

He swallows again. “Yeah.”

She says, “You know I love you, right, Oscar?”

“Yeah,” he says, “I love you, too.” The words feel heavier today. He should’ve said them more often. Should’ve said them every time he caught sight of her, instead of waiting ‘til it hurt more to hold them in than say them out loud. Should’ve called her anything other than just his girl, like she wasn’t a ride-or-die without ever being asked to be.

When he kisses her it’s because he can. Because he wants to say, _Maybe when we have a baby he can stay in there, or with us, or we can buy a bigger house_. Because she’s warm like always, pressed up against him, and in the morning they’re going to sentence him to seven or eight or nine years, probably. Gets his mouth on her instead of being honest like he should be, licks up inside her how they both like and fucks her again, faster, because it’ll be tomorrow soon and then it’s over. Of course they both know where he’s headed.

There’s no house waiting for them in Tijuana. Oscar wishes there were.


End file.
